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about this,” Mark muttered, eyes roving over the painting.
    “Why would he go to all the trouble to hide this?” Cindy asked.
    “Maybe because of the blood on the wrapping?” Jeremiah suggested.
    “Yeah, but why not just dispose of that?” Mark asked. “I swear, this case just keeps getting weirder and weirder.” Mark pulled the painting free and flipped it over. The back was smooth with no mounting brackets of any kind.
    “This can’t be the picture that was hanging in the dining room,” Jeremiah said.
    “What? What do you mean?” Mark asked with a frown.
    “There’s a nail hole in the dining room as though a picture or something was hanging in there at one time. There’s no hardware on this, so this can’t be it.”
    “Show me,” Mark said.
    He and Cindy followed Jeremiah into the dining room where he pointed out the nail hole. The detective studied it for a moment and then sighed.
    “Just once I’d like a nice straight-forward homicide. Find the killer standing over the body with the smoking gun saying ‘yep, I did it’. Is that too much to ask?”
    Jeremiah knew it was a rhetorical question, but he still had to bite his tongue to keep from giving a sarcastic reply.
    The detective turned with a sigh. “What else have you come up with?”
    Jeremiah gave him the condensed version of what he’d been able to translate so far and Mark jotted a few notes down in his notebook.
    When he was finished Cindy jumped in. “What have you been able to find out?”
    Mark looked at her in surprise. “Oh no, we’re not doing that again. I’m the detective, remember?”
    “You invited both of us here, so I think we’re involved, and this time the only one you can blame is yourself,” Cindy said tartly.
    Jeremiah noticed that despite her tough words she looked a little flustered and he hid a smile. She had come such a long way from the woman he had first met who was screaming over a dead body in her church sanctuary. She was still uncomfortable, though, with being aggressive. It was actually very endearing.
    Mark glared but then gave in a moment later. “You’re right, it’s my fault. Okay, all I know so far is that the guy appears to have been in this country for decades, but he’s never held any kind of job that I can find a record of. He has a checking account with decent money in it, he makes regular deposits in cash, and spends very little. He owns this house outright and has for the past ten years.”
    “Ten years?” Cindy asked. “He’s had this place for ten years? Surely he couldn’t have been living in it all this time.”
    “I can’t find a record of him living anywhere else for the past ten years, so I guess so.”
    “It’s like he only ever really used the bedroom and the writing room,” Jeremiah said.
    “Writing room, funny,” Mark said. “I’m sure he used the reading room, too.”
    Jeremiah looked at him, not understanding what he meant.
    “You know, the bath-oh, never mind.”
    Cindy struggled and failed to hide a grin.
    “Okay, I’m going to have the forensic guys check this painting out and the blood on the wrapping,” Mark said. “Are you two getting ready to call it a night?”
    Jeremiah shook his head. “I’d like to, but like I said, I only have so much time I can devote to this before Rosh Hashanah. I need to keep going if I’m going to have a chance at getting done on time.”
    “Sorry, I know you must be even more exhausted than I am,” Mark said in a rare show of compassion.
    “It’s alright. It needs to get done,” Jeremiah said.
    “I’ll stay for a while longer and see if I can find any other hiding spots,” Cindy said.
    “I’d tell you not to bother, but with your luck, there’s probably a dozen more dogs playing poker paintings hidden around here and you’re the only one who could find them,” Mark said.
    “I’m guessing that’s a compliment?” Cindy said.
    “Yeah, I guess it is,” Mark said, sounding tired. “Well, kids, call me if